I don’t recommend going into this book without some preexisting knowledge of the events. Once you get into the rhythm, and give up on distinguishing between all the characters, the tension builds super effectively up to the shootings. ( )

This was so well told. It was well researched and seems accurate. The only thing I wish was a bit different was that it was a bit more clear who we were following at times. But this didn’t detract from the book enough to warrant any star demotion. ( )

Another great book about Kent State. Very informational. The B&W drawings were well done and stressed the gravity of the situation. Sometimes it was a bit wordy on the pages but over all it was one that should be in the library collection. ( )

A graphic novel of the 1970 protests and shootings on the Kent State campus.
I knew •of• the Kent State incident but despite living in Ohio off and on for 20+ years, I'd never known the details until now, so I'm happy to have read this to get a better sense of what happened. It's a nicely structured account, although be warned that Backderf doesn't do much to hide his opinions on who was in the wrong (I agree with him, but it still reads a little more slanted than an objective account should, so if that's what you'd rather have you won't find it here). Also, I really don't like this illustration style. It's...ugly? And maybe that's partly the point, but my brain just doesn't cotton to it. ( )

Kent State is an event that I've always been vaguely aware of, but I don't remember it being given too much attention during any history class I took in school. There is so much US history to cover (not to mention all the other world history that's happened before and since) that glossing over a fairly recent event like this is almost understandable. That's unfortunate, though, because not only were the aftershocks of this event huge (changes to how law enforcement approach crowd control during protests; the cover-up, investigation, and warring opinions about the events and who was at fault), but the Kent State massacre is probably more relevant than ever before considering the protests going on in the US over the past few years.

At some point in the recent past I read the Wikipedia pages for the Kent State shootings and the four victims who were killed that day. It seemed like a good, unsentimental overview at the time, but the way the events are presented here in this book go above and beyond the facts in a good way. Spending some time with each victim in the days leading up to the massacre, seeing their friendships and relationships, watching them go to work and school and to parties, and following the events, beliefs, and choices that led them to be near the Prentice Hall parking lot on May 4, 1970, was compelling. Seeing all of the political conflict, covert government dealings/misunderstandings, and flat out foolish mistakes that led to violence occurring on that day was heartbreaking. Over the course of the book all of these elements combined into a mounting sense of dread that is ultimately only a fraction of what the protesters, bystander students, their families, and the whole country that watched felt during and after Kent State. Derf Beckderf did a wonderfully effective job of laying out a lot of important information in a compassionate way.

I don't know why I felt the need to write a whole long review for this book, but I'm glad to know a little more about the Kent State shootings than I did before. Unfortunately, the US is probably always going to experience political unrest of some sort. There will probably always be unhappy citizens making their opinions known via protests, some of them violent but many of them peaceful (frustrated, but peaceful). Reading this in light of the protests we've seen over the past year, for BLM and stopping AAPI hate and other important topics, hits hard, but it also made me feel a little worse: history repeats itself if you don't learn from it, and I'm not sure enough people learned from this to stop the repetition. ( )

A well-researched and compelling told history of the shooting of Kent State University students by the Ohio National Guard during a peaceful protest in 1970. ( )

This graphic novel is a heartbreaking account of the days leading up to the infamous tragedy of May 1970, in which National Guardsmen killed four unarmed students and injured nine others at a Vietnam War protest on the Kent State University campus. The author had done and documented his extensive research to help us learn the lives of the four students. He even shares their hopes and dreams for the future that was stolen from them.

The situation was violent and graphic as is the novel’s portrayal. The days building to the day of the killings are wrought with tremendous confusion and tension.
This very mature novel which puts the reader right in the middle of the incident. ( )

This is the third Derf Backderf comic my father-in-law (like Derf, a Clevelander) has bought for me, but the first I have gotten around to reading. It chronicles the four days leading up to the Kent State Massacre, especially focusing on the details of the movements of the four students who would end up dying. Backderf's end notes demonstrate copious and seemingly rigorous research, drawing on a wide variety of primary and secondary sources, and integrating contradictory information into a coherent narrative; when he is unable to make a clear determination of truth, he explains why he made the choices he did.

It's a strong piece of graphic nonfiction; the ability of the comics page to alternate between exhaustive written detail and impressionistic visual imagery is well utilized by Backderf. Sometimes, in the actual gunning down of the four, he can use both at once to maximum effect. There's a crushing sense of inevitability to it all, but it's the kind of inevitability that on reflection is not inevitable: it's an inevitability born of bad choices, and if any one of a number of people in positions of power had reacted better, this need not have happened. But none of them had the wisdom or the foresight to act appropriately-- and as Backderf details, they also reacted inappropriately, spending the next couple months spreading misinformation to make themselves look good instead of reacting truthfully.

Backderf has a sort of "indie comix" style that is not "realistic" per se but I think is meant to evoke a feeling of "realism" through exaggeration if that distinction makes sense-- his style wouldn't look out of place on American Splendor, for example. It works well for the buffonish authority figures and the scenes of mob violence; I found it was less successful when it came to differentiating the college kids who form the emotional heart of the story, and I couldn't always remember which one was which. It would be nice to reread it and see if I can keep them straight better, because I think their generic-ness undermined some of the story's emotional impact. But even so, it was impactful, and unfortunately, there are some ways it feels all-too-like the issues Backderf discusses in the 1970s haven't really gone away in the 2010s, and honestly have gotten even worse. (Though on the other hand, his world of politically engaged revolutionary college students seems a world apart from the one I know as a college professor now!)

I love Derf's work and I have always been fascinated by the May 4, 1970 Kent State story, so I was doubly interested to read (and own) this book. I found it mesmerizing and enlightening. The artwork is stellar, as always for a Derf book. Seeing this history brought to life in black and white drawings really gives it some emotional weight. I was fascinated by the "preamble" so to speak, the three days leading up to the shootings shown via the activities of Jeff, Sandy, Allison, and Bill on and around campus. While some of it had to be imagined by Derf, a surprising amount of their whereabouts is known and documented, so it's not as fictional as you might think. Derf also includes the point of view if a National Guardsman, which was also really interesting. The author/artist includes dozens of pages of historical research notes at the end of the book, that are fascinating reading on their own; I really liked that part too, how he synthesized ALL of the best nonfiction books about May 4 when he was creating his book, down to averaging the distances given in various sources for how far away the victims were from the Guardsmen when they were hit. He reports rumors about the CIA and FBI informants and snipers, giving sources for the rumors and why he did or did not include them in the story he told. Really great book for a definitive telling of the tale, and some stark visuals like blood washing off the pavement in the rain.... ( )

The more things change . . .

Derf provides this dramatization of events leading up to the Kent State shootings that happened fifty years ago, but it all eerily echo headlines from today's news: a corrupt and paranoid president leads the country, a liberal mainstream protest movement is aswirl in rumors of radical elements and terrorism, armed conservatives are sick of what they see as chaos and anarchy and are ready to put a stop to it all by any means necessary.

Gripping and tragic. I couldn't even make myself stop reading until I finished all the damned endnotes at two in the morning. ( )

Summary: A graphic non-fiction account of the shooting of four students at Kent State University, focusing on the students who died, and the sequence of events leading up to the shooting, and the dynamics within the National Guard Troops sent to suppress the student demonstrations.

May 4, 2020 marks 50 years since the shootings that took the lives of four Kent State students and wounded nine others, some disabled for life. I grew up about 35 miles from Kent in nearby Youngstown. Sandy Scheuer, a student walking between classes, grew up in Boardman, a Youngstown suburb. She was a sweet, apolitical, speech pathology major until one of the shots severed her jugular. She bled to death in minutes. I was a high school sophomore at the time. We walked around school the day after utterly stunned.

The others who died were Allison Krause, Jeff Miller, and Bill Schroeder. This new graphic non-fiction work by Derf Backderf traces the last days and final moments of these four students, from May 1 to May 4. It also covers the events surrounding the shootings. It begins with the announcement of Richard Nixon of the expansion of the Vietnam conflict into Cambodia, and the student reaction, including extensive rioting at Ohio State, a debacle for then governor James Rhodes, running for Senate. with a primary election coming up that week. Backderf profiles the Ohio National Guard, portraying these "weekend warriors" as coming into Kent from a tense standoff between teamsters and "scab" truckers in nearby Richfield. Short of sleep and already on edge from fear of snipers and other attacks, they arrive in Kent confronting students who have gutted a number of downtown businesses, and set an ROTC building on fire. Furthermore, a swirl of rumored threats put them on further edge.

Bill Schroeder was an ROTC student, likable yet a serious student with increasing doubts about the war. Jeff Miller, a transfer student loved the Kent bar and music scene but was increasingly upset by the war, and the Guard presence, having been gassed and eluded helicopter surveillance to get back to his home. Allison Krause, a politically engaged student also had encounters with an increasingly hostile Guard, and was amid the demonstrators. Both Schroeder and Scheuer were in a parking lot more than 400 feet from where the shots were fired. The closest students were at least 150 feet away. Backderf's accounts of these students corresponds to others I've read.

While Backderf's focus is on the students, he does explore radical elements with the Students for a Democratic Society and the Weatherman that had been on campus, but apparently cleared out before the student demonstrations on May 4. Unfortunately, Jeff Miller's red headband, matched descriptions of the headwear of some of the radicals. Backderf also gives attention to a suspicious photographer, Terry Norman, apparently working for the FBI or another agency. Backderf note that he was armed and in the middle of the demonstrations on May 4. He also explores the possibilities of significant government infiltration of the campus prior to the shootings.

Two things stand out in the account of the shooting. One is the origin of the shooting. Backderf, like others, cannot come to a definitive conclusion, beyond focusing on Company G, and the reported huddle that occurred in the minutes before they opened fire. All the Guardsman were "locked and loaded" meaning that had live ammunition clips in their semiautomatic rifles, with a round in the firing chamber. Guns were reloaded with new clips afterward and no one was ever held accountable for the shootings.

The other thing that "graphically" stood out was the portrayal of the deaths and wounds of each student, including portrayals of entry and exit wounds, along with text describing the damage rendered by each bullet that struck a student. The force of an M-16 gunshot can fatally wound at 2 miles. One round penetrated a plate of steel in a sculpture. I have seen the bullet hole. Casualty numbers do not convey the terror of those moments, how the students who died never had a chance, and the utter waste of what occurred.

Although this is a graphic work, it is not fiction but an attempt to render the history of these events graphically. The artist spent time onsite, and his renderings of places, including Kent's downtown bars is accurate. He interviewed people close to the four students and spent extensive time in other interviews and in the Kent archives. The back matter includes extensive notes detailing Backderf's research.

On this 50th anniversary, amid a time of a country in a health crisis, an economic crisis, and already facing deep divisions, this book portrays how demonstrations can go horribly wrong. Violent words can accelerate to property damage and attacks on others. Sometimes, the forces called to intervene are not adequately prepared or properly led. Political officials at every layer of government can de-escalate or exacerbate tensions by their words and actions.

The subtitle of this work is "Four Dead in Ohio," quoting the words from "Ohio" by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, released later that summer. At the conclusion of performances, these words are followed by "how many more?" I hope this work, conveying the history of what happened to the Kent State students will renew our commitment to "no more," even as occurred in the summer following these events. Some of us will never forget, some of us need to remember, and some of us may need to learn from this history to avoid repeating it.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review galley of this book from the publisher. The opinions I have expressed are my own. ( )